Red Joan carries the troubling legend, 'based on a true story'. I say troubling because these words rather give away the game that the facts have been played with. No matter I suppose but it does rather smack of wanting to have your dramatic cake and eat it.
That note of caution aside, Red Joan turns out to be a quiet rumination on the attraction of treason in the face of mutually assured detsruction. It stars the brilliant Judi Dench. It is a sombre little film but, in its terms, not badly done. 62/100.
An altogether more ambitious movie is
The Trial of the Chicago 7. It deploys its army of stars to telling effect but the acting, good as it is, is not the thing. No the thing is Aaoron Sorkin's typically compelling script. Sorkin is the master of sharp dialogue. David Hare please look and learn. On occasions Sorkin overdoes himself - can people really talk in such a perfectly modulated manner? But we have to allow some dramatic licence because this is writing of the highest calibre. An important piece of Americana. Particular kudos to Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the prosecuting lawyer - a difficult part, given the film's liberal tilt, to make sympathetic. 76/100.
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